A Swarm or Two

Back in December 2009, I helped Steve Rosales collect some bees from a tree . That time we had his bee vac and this was hive of bees that had been living there for a couple years. Those bees were moved to a new hive owed by Ed Garcia.

Last week at the bee meeting, Ed showed up to let us know his bees had absconded, maybe due to a wax moth issue, maybe because only the bees really know. In any case Ed did not have bees.

The weather here in Southern California has been very nice, 70-85 the last few days and swarms have been popping all over the place. The Bee Rescue Hot Line has been going crazy. I have all the bees I can handle at the moment (the Playa Vista bees seem to like it here) so I have just been scanning the rescue announcements with no intentions of collecting any. Then as I was watching my favorite British EPL Soccer team, Fulham, take it to the Germans, Wolfsburg, in the UEFA Cup, another Rescue alert popped up.

"Ed Garcia has an emergency bee situation. The office building he's working at wants to kill the little swarm that's about 5 feet off the ground and easily accessible. He wanted to do it himself this afternoon, but HR at his company doesn't want to wait that long."

I wondered if it was the same Ed Garcia from December and who had lost his bees. A few minutes later my phone rang and I had my answer. It was that Ed. Before I protest that I was too involved in a most important soccer game , Ed suggested we meet at 5:30. That was a grand option for me and I was able to enjoy Fulham's victory.

Ed called at 5 to let me know there were now two swarms, not just one. Not a problem, I already had two nuc's in my truck with my other stuff and I was on the way.


There were two swarms but this one was beyond my skills. Maybe if it "reaches out and touches someone" GTE will send a crew to open their phone hole and deal with them. In any case this lid was too heavy and sealed, no way was I going to try to get those bees.


The other swam was in a more practical location. This was the classic football sized swam about 6 ft up in a little tree outside Ed's office.

This would prove much easier than my attempted tree rescue last Friday and no stings and swollen face either. This was anther gentle swarm, my luck was changing.


Ed thought they would do well at his place. So I sprayed them with sugar water and after placing the nuc under the swarm Ed gave the tree a couple of whacks and down they came.


A lot of the bees were in the nuc but there still bees in the tree. We took our time watching to see if the bees were flying down to the nuc or back up to the tree branch. It seemed the queen was in the nuc but there was no way to be sure.

There were still bees up there. After waiting a while I hoisted the nuc up and brushed bees inside (they never seem to like that) and followed later by giving the branch another whack or two. The majority of the bees were in the nuc but there were still a good number not inside. I had plans for the evening and this was not a place to leave a nuc overnight for wandering bees to enter as I had done with the Playa Vista bees. We took another option.


I propped the nuc right against the branch with most of the bees and was trying to tie it off and not being very successful until Ed remembered a bungie cord in his office. That was the perfect solution, the nuc was locked into position and the bees should be all in within the hour. The sun was going down and the bees would prefer to be inside for the evening.


The bees at the left are doing the good thing and marching right into the nuc. The same thing was happening at the other end. Ed would stay for the next hour before putting the lid on the nuc and taking them to their new home. I was off to my appointment. Everyone should be happy. Tomorrow I will contact Ed and see how the new bees are doing.

Another swarm saved and new skills and ideas learned. Ma Bell will have to deal with her bees.

Would This Be Home

When I captured the Playa Vista swarm I made a couple of decisions, both turned out to be correct but I was just guessing. I had no clue. Most of the time swarms are collected at places where you cannot leave nucs or equipment overnight. This time the swam was collected on Cammie & Rory's patio, locked away from people and problems so it was a no brainer to leave the nucs there over night, uncovered so straggler bees could get into the nuc. And all the bees in the second nuc were able to more over to the primary nuc with the beloved Queen. . It worked like a charm. When I picked up the nuc boxes the next day, I doubt there were over 20 bees from the original swarm that were left behind. That was a good feeling..

A few days prior I had collected the YMCA bees, they stayed one night and absconded the next day. Bummer. Once again, quite by accident I made the right decision. I brought the nuc home and set it up but did not open it for several hours. There was no logic involved, that just felt like the right thing to do, maybe the scents in the area would imprint them and this swarm would stay

I left them with the plug in and went in to watch some British Football (soccer). About those frames on the ground, you ask? When I left the day before to go to Playa Vista I remembered I had some swarm lure in the spare hive I have out back I went to get it. I had put a few old frames with comb in that hive. I had followed advice and put all those frames into the freezer to deal with wax moth larvae. As soon as I opened the hive it was obvious I needed a colder freezer, there was larvae detritus everywhere. I pulled the waxed frames out so the sun could deal with them. Later I scraped the litter on the bottom of the hive out. There was a small cluster of 10 or so bees inside the hive. These must have been left over from the Y swarm. I put the other clean frames next them before closing the hive and leaving for Playa Vista. Maybe they would join the hive arriving shortly.


A couple hours later I checked again and found some of the bees had found a way out so I removed the nuc plug. The bees came out and met the Dale. My lucky move.. I ran across this on the Organic Beekeepers Yahoo group today:

Posted by: "Fred" fred_boucher@verizon.net fredster4

Wed Mar 31, 2010 8:10 am (PDT)

Which is why installing a package at the end of the day has always been good advice. It works in harmony with the bees inate desire to be sheltered at the end of any day and then they start keeping house and it is that much more rare that they will abscond the next morning because they have kept house for the whole night.

That is what I had done quite by accident. Today they were flying in and out when I checked and did not seem ready to move away. I had one small problem, the nuc had a screened lid and rain was predicted overnight. I went out after dark and swapped the lid for a solid one.

The Playa bees should be secure for the night.



The Twitchy Bees are still happy. I lifted the top for a quick glance today. I need to go back after the spat of bad weather. They seemed all together too active, the third super may be filling up quickly. I need to get another one ready. It is put together in the garage but I still have to make the wax strips and insert them.

With the spot of bad weather tonight it is possible the Playa Bees will decide to stay in The Dale.